6,500 more west Hull homes to go superfast this year

KCOM has announced that its superfast broadband service will become available to more than 6,500 homes and businesses in west Hull’s Willerby Road and surrounding streets later this year. It has also released details of more than 220 streets in Hedon and Preston where the service will become available before the year is out.

From early September more than 2,000 households in streets including Lomond Road, Brooklands Road and Manor Road will be able to order KCOM’s Lightstream service. A further 4,500 households in streets including Calvert Road, Priory Road and Wold Road will be able to order Lightstream from the end of October.

Lightstream, which delivers broadband speeds many times faster than standard copper broadband, is already available to more than 75,000 properties across Hull and East Yorkshire. Earlier this year KCOM announced plans to accelerate its rollout of the service over the next 18 months to make it available to around 150,000 properties – approximately three quarters of its network – by December 2017. By that time KCOM’s total capital investment in installing fibre will have reached approximately £60 million.

Two weeks ago Lightstream became available to 3,200 households in and around the Bricknell Avenue area of Hull, including Burniston Road, County Road North, National Avenue and Fairfax Avenue. Since then more than 600 homes in the area have switched to Lightstream or made an appointment to have it installed.

Hull is the only city in the UK where broadband officially described as “ultrafast” – delivering download speeds capable of at least 100Mbps (megabits per second) – is being made available as standard. This is because KCOM is installing fibre cables all the way from its telephone exchanges to customers’ properties. Elsewhere in the UK, fibre cables are typically laid only as far as telecoms cabinets in the street, with copper cable forming the final connection to the customer. The result is slower download speeds that vary according to how far a customer lives from the street cabinet.

KCOM’s Chief Marketing Officer Cathy Phillips said: “Since we increased our investment in fibre broadband earlier this year we’ve picked up the pace of our rollout and are announcing new Lightstream locations every month. Our Willerby Road rollout plan is the largest we’ve announced to date and we’re delighted to be bringing superfast speeds to thousands of homes in the area during the months ahead.

“We’d encourage customers living in the area and in Hedon and Preston to register their interest in Lightstream on our website to be among the first to be notified when installation appointments are available.”

By registering their interest in Lightstream in advance via kcomhome.com, people will receive an email inviting them to take advantage of priority booking one week before appointments become available to the general public.

Residents can find out if Lightstream is already available at their address by entering their postcode atkcomhome.com/broadband.

Which streets are going superfast in Hedon and Preston?

The streets in Hedon and Preston going live this year are listed below. For technical reasons it may not be available at every property in every street. More information about KCOM’s rollout plan during 2016 can be found atkcomhome.com/rollout.